


History Will Decide

by Brumeier



Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: Community: intoabar, Declassification (Stargate), First Meetings, Gen, Investigations, Off-World, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24810061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Trixie Belden (Trixie Belden Mysteries) goes into a bar and meets…Acastus Kolya (Stargate Atlantis)!Trixie has been brought to Atlantis to write a puff piece for the impending declassification of the program. But she has a nose for secrets, and a chance meeting will reinforce her determination to dig deeper.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 19
Collections: A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar





	History Will Decide

**Author's Note:**

> Written for: Intoabar 2020

_History will decide if I’m a villain or a hero_. (Harlan Ellison)

*o*

Trixie stepped through the Gate, feeling energized. She wondered if the teams that regularly traveled through the wormhole system felt that way every time, or if the novelty eventually wore off.

It was only her third trip through what the Marines called ‘the puddle’, and it was both terrifying and amazing all at once. She had no idea how she could write the experience in a way that her readers would really get it.

“The market is just over that hill,” Major Napier said, pointing.

“Great! Let’s go!”

Trixie was eager to get started, but the Major held her back. 

“Marines first,” he reminded her. 

There was no reason to expect trouble – Colonel Lorne had only agreed to let Trixie go along because it was something called a ‘milk run’ – but she didn’t feel like getting into an argument about it, so she let herself be shuffled into the middle of the team.

Unlike everyone else on Major Napier’s team, Trixie was dressed as a civilian. No tac vest, no black uniform, absolutely no firearms. Instead, she was wearing a jean jacket outfitted with her own buttonhole camera (to help jog her memory later when she was writing things up), a little notebook in her pocket, a wrist band with a beacon in it just in case she got lost, an earpiece so she could stay in touch, and a personal shield courtesy of Dr. McKay in case things got dicey.

“Do you visit the market often?” Trixie asked. 

“About once a month or so, ma’am,” Lieutenant Frost replied. 

Trixie knew from slogging through the after action reports, which Dr. Zelenka had very kindly made available to her as audio files (her dyslexia would’ve made reading them a nightmare), that the First Year expedition had set up trade relations with many native groups as a matter of survival. The market she was going to visit was one of those early trade centers.

When they crested the hill the market came into view. There were wooden stalls and banners flapping in the wind and people calling out their wares, and Trixie was reminded of similar scenes in movies set during the time of knights and castles. It was incredibly charming.

“Rules,” Major Napier said. “Stay close. Stay in touch. Slightest suggestion of trouble, you activate that shield and give a call.”

Trixie saluted, and the Major’s lip twitched up like he wanted to smile. 

Free to explore, Trixie moved through the crowd, taking in the variety of clothing and personal ornamentation. Some were tattooed, like Ronon. Some wore leather, others wore rough cloth. Men and women and children, young and old, and all of them both alien and still somehow human. The scents of leather and fried meat and something heavily floral filled the air.

Trixie had come to Pegasus to write a fluff piece about Atlantis, in conjunction with the upcoming declassification. Well, the IOA _expected_ her to write something glossy and insubstantial, but Trixie had other ideas. She wanted to get to the truth of the expedition, the real struggles they faced, decisions they might have had to make – especially that first year – that might have been morally ambiguous.

Atlantis was her chance to be a real investigative journalist.

“A pretty dress for a pretty woman?”

Trixie politely reclined the dress one of the vendors held up. She also turned down offers for freshly caught fish, leather boots, and a variety of really lovely jewelry. She wasn’t allowed to bring back any souvenirs, not to Earth, not until declassification happened.

She looked at all the different Pegasus peoples and wondered what would happen to them, to their communities, once the secret was out. How many people would travel from Earth to colonize and explore? Humans didn’t have the best track record when it came to interacting with indigenous peoples.

“Redberry wine!” the next vendor called out.

That, at least, Trixie could partake of. 

She stepped into the next stall, which was set up as a kind of bar. There weren’t any tables, but benches lined either wall, the bar itself just a board set up across two sawhorses. Trixie accepted a wooden mug of wine from the bartender, an older woman wearing something similar to a dirndl, in exchange for a Hershey bar. Chocolate, it seemed, was the casual currency of Atlantis because there was nothing like it in Pegasus.

Trixie sat on a bench. There was only one other person in there, and he was sitting across from her. She flashed him a smile and took a sip of her wine, promptly choking.

“Strong!” she gasped. It burned like moonshine. “Gleeps!”

The man chuckled and had murmured words with the bartender. Trixie’s cup was exchanged with a different one, and once she got her breath back, she took a very tentative sip.

“Oh. That’s better.”

“It’s watered down,” the man said. “Full strength redberry is something you need to work up to.”

“Thanks.”

The man looked familiar, though Trixie couldn’t think why that might be. He was older, late forties or early fifties, maybe, and had a thick brown beard shot through with gray. He was wearing homespun clothes in a mix of earthy browns and greens, but his boots, scuffed and dirty as they were, looked like military issue.

“First time?” the man asked.

Trixie didn’t know if he meant the wine or the market, but since the answer to both was the same, she said, “Yes.”

“I saw you have chocolate,” the man said. “You’re a Lantean?”

“I’m just passing through,” Trixie replied in all honesty. She wasn’t a Lantean, and she wasn’t a Tau’ri. She was just a girl from Sleepyside.

She tried to study the man without being obvious about it, because she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d seen him somewhere before. Trixie was pretty good with faces. He wasn’t Lantean, so he had to be a Pegasus native. Where would she have seen him?

After action reports. AARs. She’d been listening to the audio, but many of the files also had photo attachments.

Trixie tried to picture the man without the beard. Why would he have shown up in an AAR? Possibly he was someone important, an elder or leader of one of the offworld settlements.

“Do you do much trading here?” Trixie asked.

“Just passing through, like you said,” he replied.

His lips twitched up, almost a grin, and just like that it snapped into place for Trixie. The man was Acastus Kolya, enemy of Atlantis. The picture Trixie had seen was from security camera footage when the man invaded the city and tried to take it over. There was video, too, but she hadn’t been authorized to see it.

Kolya was supposed to be dead.

Trixie wasn’t sure what she should do. Alert Major Napier? Make a citizen’s arrest?

“I’ll be gone before they get here,” Kolya said, sounding amused.

Trixie cursed her open face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes you do.” He finished his wine and signaled for another. He didn’t seem at all concerned that Atlantis soldiers were close by and would be more than happy to take him into custody.

“Are you planning something?” Trixie asked. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“I was.”

“Planning something or dead?”

“The Wraith are no longer a threat,” Kolya said with a shrug. “There’s no need for men like me anymore.”

Trixie hoped like hell her buttonhole camera was working. “And what kind of man are you?”

“The survival of my people was all I wanted. Nothing more.”

“You killed people. Tortured them.” 

Trixie had seen the footage of General Sheppard getting fed on by a Wraith. Putting anyone through that was unnecessarily vicious.

“Sometimes death is part of survival,” Kolya said. “I wasn’t alone in that. The Hoffans knew sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. So did the Wraith worshippers, in their own twisted way. And the Lanteans.”

“The ends justify the means?”

“My people survive. History will decide if the actions I took were justified.”

“Doing terrible things for a good reason doesn’t make them any less terrible,” Trixie pointed out. “You could’ve asked for help.”

“We wouldn’t have received it,” Kolya said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. There was accusation in his tone. “You know how large the city is, the resources available there. The Lanteans kept it all to themselves, even as people were being culled and killed. Asylum was never offered. Even the Athosians were transplanted as quickly as possible.”

Now that was interesting. Trixie had seen Atlantis from above, inside a puddlejumper. Dr. Zelenka told her it was roughly the size of Manhattan. Why _didn’t_ they open it up to Pegasus natives? The entire population of Atlantis was living in two adjacent towers, the whole of the city still unopened and partially unexplored. Aside from Ambassador Emmagan and her family, and Ronon, there were no Pegasus natives living in the city.

She knew Atlantis housed the only Stargate in Pegasus capable of dialing Earth, and it had to be guarded to protect an entire other galaxy, but surely there were ways to do that and still have the city operate at full capacity the way it once had.

Before Trixie could ask Kolya any follow-up questions, her earpiece buzzed.

_Ms. Belden, please check in._

Trixie turned slightly away, fumbling with the tiny buttons on the earpiece. “Hi. Yes. I’m fine. Over.”

_Please join us at the entrance of the market in ten minutes._

“Roger. Over and out.”

Ten minutes wasn’t nearly enough time, not for the interview of Trixie’s lifetime. She thought of the files she’d been denied access to, the ones marked ‘Arcturus’ and ‘Kenmore’. What was General Sheppard hiding?

Trixie turned back, only to be greeted by an empty bench. Wait. How had Kolya gotten past without her seeing him leave?

She put her cup on the bar and darted out of the stall, looking for Kolya, but he was long gone. That was disappointing. But he’d reinforced her desire to write an actual investigative piece about the Atlantis expedition. There were secrets, who knew how many, and she wanted to find them.

There was no-one better than Trixie Belden at uncovering mysteries, no matter where in the universe she found herself.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** I found this pairing daunting at first glance. How could I get Trixie to Atlantis? She’s not military material, for sure. And given her struggles in most of her school subjects, scientist didn’t seem like an option. But a girl with a nose for mysteries would make a great reporter, so that’s how that happened. And since John bought the faux Kolya’s explanation for still being alive in ‘Remnants’, I thought what the heck. Alive it is!
> 
> I’m not trying to make Kolya a sympathetic guy. He did some really terrible things. But, like a lot of villains, his intentions were honorable-adjacent. And let’s be honest. The expedition made their share of missteps in the name of survival, too. Trixie, being an outsider in every way, would be able to take a more objective view of the things that happened.
> 
> Anyhoo, thanks to nagi_schwarz for the hand holding and beta services!


End file.
